Citizenship Amendment Bill: Pakistan terms CAB 'discriminatory'

Hours after the Lok Sabha passed the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2019, Pakistan has criticized India and termed the CBA 'discriminatory legislation'.

In a statement, Pakistan's Foreign Office said that the latest legislation, which offers Indian nationality to the nationals of Pakistan and two other South Asian countries except Muslims, passed by the Indian Lok Sabha earlier today, is "premised on a falsehood and is in complete violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international Covenants on elimination of all forms of discrimination based on religion or belief.

"Taking its diabolic rhetoric on the 'Hindu Rashtra' further, the statement bluffed that the "legislation has once again exposed the hollowness of the claims to 'secularism' and 'democracy'."

"We condemn the legislation as regressive and discriminatory, which is in violation of all relevant international conventions and norms, and a glaring attempt by India to interfere in the neighboring countries with malafide intent," the statement read.

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The lower house passed the CBA, which seeks to provide Indian citizenship to non-Muslim refugees coming from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan after facing religious persecution there, a little past midnight on Monday after a heated debate that lasted over seven hours.

The Bill, which was passed in the Lok Sabha with 311 members favoring it and 80 voting against it, will now be tabled in the Rajya Sabha for its nod.

Several amendments brought by opposition members, including one by a Shiv Sena MP, were defeated either by voice vote or division.

According to the proposed legislation, members of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities, who have come from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, till December 31, 2014 facing religious persecution there, will not be treated as illegal immigrants but given Indian citizenship.

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